Jones v. Wilhelm
| Decision Date | 03 October 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 04-1261.,No. 04-1605.,04-1261.,04-1605. |
| Citation | 425 F.3d 455 |
| Parties | Mark D. JONES and Theresa A. Jones, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Cross-Appellants, v. Ron WILHELM, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Jeff Scott Olson (argued), Madison, WI, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
Mark B. Hazelbaker (argued), Hazelbaker & Russell, Madison, WI, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before FLAUM, Chief Judge, and RIPPLE and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
While executing a search warrant, Detective Ron Wilhelm and his team of officers mistakenly entered the apartment of Mark and Theresa Jones. Mr. and Mrs. Jones sued Detective Wilhelm pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging a violation of their Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. In particular, the Joneses claimed that Wilhelm failed to take reasonable steps to discern the proper target of the warrant before execution of the warrant ("the warrant claim") and failed to give them sufficient time to answer their door before entering ("the knock-and-announce claim").
On the knock-and-announce claim, the district court denied Wilhelm's motion for summary judgment. We affirm the district court's denial of summary judgment because the alleged facts taken in a light most favorable to the Joneses indicate a violation of their clearly established rights. On the warrant claim, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Wilhelm on qualified immunity grounds. We find, however, that Wilhelm violated the Joneses' clearly established rights where he (1) executed a validly issued warrant he knew to be facially ambiguous; and (2) circumvented the magistrate judge and resolved the warrant's ambiguity on his own. Therefore, we reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Wilhelm on qualified immunity grounds.
In addition, in evaluating the Joneses' warrant claim, we find that the pleadings depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with any affidavits, show that there are no genuine issues of fact regarding Wilhelm's deprivation of the Joneses' rights as secured by the Constitution or Wilhelm's status as a person acting under color of state law. Thus, we grant summary judgment in favor of the Joneses on their warrant claim.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones live at 220 W. Burnett Avenue in Grantsburg, Wisconsin. The building at 220 W. Burnett Avenue contains two apartments on the lower level and two on the upper level. The upstairs apartments are labeled "# 1" and "# 2." Apartment # 1 is on the north side, and apartment # 2 is on the south side. At the time of the search that led to this suit, the Joneses resided in apartment # 1, and Jody Gruenwald-Anderson occupied apartment # 2. There are two entrances to 220 W. Burnett Avenue, one in the front (west) and one in the back (east). Each entrance offers a staircase leading to the second floor. Someone who uses the front door and accompanying staircase faces east both when entering the building and when reaching the second floor. Conversely, parties using the rear door faces west both when entering the building and upon alighting at the top of the stairs.
Early in 2002 Wilhelm received a tip from Valerie Kauffman, who lived on the first floor of 220 W. Burnett Avenue, regarding drug activity in the building. Kauffman alleged that some upstairs residents were involved in drugs, but she did not specify which of the two upstairs apartments they occupied. In support of her claim, Kauffman told Wilhelm he should "just watch the [pedestrian] traffic, you will see a lot of activity in this building." In response, Wilhelm performed surveillance on the building for approximately ten nights. During his surveillance, Wilhelm observed visitors enter the building from both entrances. Wilhelm could also see "shadows" moving in apartment # 1, but he could not see into apartment # 2, as its windows were covered with blankets.
The parties dispute what Wilhelm actually saw during his surveillance. Wilhelm testified in his deposition that he saw numerous people use the back door, while only a few used the front door. Furthermore, he stated that every time someone entered through the back door at night, he would observe activity in apartment # 1. He also acknowledged that this activity may have been non-drug related. Mr. Jones contends that Wilhelm could have made no such observations, as only a neighbor for whom Jones provided child care and the neighbor's child ever used the back door, which offered no working doorbells and was regularly kept locked.
Some time after Wilhelm's surveillance, Detective Tracy Finch received a tip from a confidential informant indicating that Jody Gruenwald-Anderson of 220 W. Burnett Avenue was manufacturing methamphetamine. The informant described Gruenwald-Anderson's apartment as being on the second floor on the right. Detective Finch obtained a warrant to search the apartment in question, but the warrant did not list Gruenwald-Anderson's name. Instead, it instructed officers to search "the upstairs apartment on the right" at 220 W. Burnett Avenue.
Finch then provided the warrant to Wilhelm for Wilhelm to execute and gave him the name of the target; Wilhelm would later recall it as either "Jody Gruenwald" or "Jody Anderson." Wilhelm then assembled a group of officers to execute the warrant and met the officers at the Grantsburg Village Police Department before driving to the apartment building to execute the warrant. After leaving the police department, but before arriving at the apartment building, Wilhelm realized that the building described in the search was the same building he had previously surveilled. Based on his earlier surveillance, Wilhelm was aware there were two staircases facing opposite directions in the building, and, he realized that the warrant was unclear where it directed the team to the "upstairs apartment on the right."
Wilhelm, however, clarified the warrant himself by reaching two conclusions. First, Wilhelm concluded that the activity he had observed in apartment # 1 which corresponded to the pedestrian traffic at the back door at night corroborated Kauffman's allegation that there was a lot of drug activity in the building. By Wilhelm's logic, only the alleged drug lab could have caused the increased nightly traffic at the building's back door, and because all of the nightly traffic coincided with activity in apartment # 1, apartment # 1 was the most likely location for the lab. Second, Wilhelm reasoned that since most people used the building's rear entrance regardless of their intentions, the informant's reference to an upstairs apartment "on the right" probably meant on the right as viewed from the top of the rear stairs. This conclusion also pointed Wilhelm toward apartment # 1, the Joneses' home.
Armed with these assumptions, Wilhelm arrived at the building to execute the warrant. Notwithstanding his determination that the warrant was directed to the back door, Wilhelm opted to enter 220 W. Burnett Avenue through the front door. Just inside the front door were doorbells with names and apartment numbers on them. It is undisputed that Gruenwald-Anderson's bell bore her name and the number of her apartment at that time. Wilhelm, however, did not read the labels on the door-bells because he was certain that he had targeted the correct apartment.
In his deposition, Wilhelm testified that the team followed standard operating procedure during the raid. After he went in the front door, Wilhelm led his team to the first set of stairs. Once at the top of the stairs, the team went to apartment # 1, which was on the left, but would have been on the right if the team had used the back entrance and stairs. On Wilhelm's order, a member of the team, Deputy Steven Sacharski, knocked, called out "police, search warrant," and kicked in the door. Each member of the team, however, gives a different time sequence for these operations:
• According to Wilhelm, Sacharski knocked, waited ten to fifteen seconds, announced, waited a few more seconds, and then entered.
• Deputy Ryan Bybee testified that Sacharski knocked and announced, waited five seconds, and then entered.
• According to Officer Dan Wald, there was a knock, a pause of two to three seconds, and then an announcement. He could not remember how long the officers waited after announcing before they entered.
• Sacharski himself testified that he knocked, waited ten to fifteen seconds, announced, waited "a couple seconds or so," and then entered.
In summary, the officers' statements indicate that Sacharski (1) knocked, (2) waited between two to eighteen seconds, (3) announced, (4) waited another two seconds, and (5) entered.
In contrast, Mr. Jones testified in his deposition that after hearing a knock at approximately 9:20 P.M. he immediately got up and "stormed towards the door," but only managed to take eight steps before the police entered. As Jones recalled the situation, the announcement started before the police entered, but "by the time the word warrant came out, the door flew open." Jones gave the time between the start of the announcement and the officers' entry as "[m]ere seconds," responding affirmatively when asked if this could mean three to five seconds.
Once inside, the officers pressed Mr. Jones to the ground and handcuffed him. The officers also awakened Mrs. Jones, who was asleep in bed in the other room, and handcuffed her. Once Wilhelm saw Mrs. Jones, he recognized her and realized he was in the wrong apartment. He ordered the handcuffs removed, apologized to the Joneses, and led his team across the hall, where they forcibly entered apartment # 2.
In the aftermath of the raid, the Joneses asserted multiple § 1983 claims, two of which are before us. First, in their warrant claim, they allege that Wilhelm failed to...
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